Q&A on Women and the Gallows 1797-1837: Unfortunate Wretches

In 1815 cook-maid Eliza Fenning was accused of trying to murder her employer and his family. She went to the gallows in front of a crowd who largely believed she was innocent.

A Q&A session with Catherine Curzon (aka Madame Gilflurt) about my book Women and the Gallows has been published.

Here’s a taster…

What inspired you to choose executed women to write about?
It started when I became interested in Eliza Fenning, a kitchen maid who was executed in London in 1815 for attempting to poison her employer and his family – and who was most probably innocent. She was hanged at a time of great civil unrest and disruption, probably as a warning to the servant class not to challenge the social order. The circumstantial evidence against her was poor and the judge was warned there were serious doubts about her guilt, but he subjected her to a highly biased trial full of irregularities. Generally I’ve always been fascinated by the ‘down and dirty’ end of Georgian history and found that not much had been published recently specifically about the capital punishment of women.

Primary Sidebar

1817: After the body of Mary Ashford is found in a pond in a village near Birmingham, the young man who claimed he left her alive and well stood trial for murder. His acquittal outraged the public. But was he really guilty? Published by Pen and Sword.

Brings new insights into their lives and the events that led to their deaths, and includes chapters on baby murders among domestic servants, counterfeiting, husband poisoning, as well as the infamous Eliza Fenning case.

Taunton, 1817. Barrister George Tuckett wakes to discover that his 16-year-old niece Maria Glenn, reputedly the heiress to West Indian sugar plantations, is missing. A true story, with an astonishing ending.